Great idea greene.

I worked professionally as an editor once upon a time. I would be happy to take part in that.

Bonehead said:I don't follow or use blogs so I'm out of that loop. .

@Bonehead does that mean you will no longer add to your blog, your last update was over a year ago?
https://garden.org/blogs/view/...

I seem to use my blog in an entirely different way than most people -- instead of it being a sort of daily journal, I just have entries for things I want to save information about, or ideas that I come across for the garden, that sort of thing. Which means that most of the time I just add to one of the established sections, so it doesn't register as being updated.

Yeah, I tried using the blog for a couple things, but it didn't really pan out for me. I haven't really looked to see if I can shut down my blog or not, but assume it just sits in perpetual hold. I haven't looked at it in probably a year (as Sue noted). My main purpose of using this web site is to keep an accurate inventory of my personal plants: when I got them, where they are located, when they emerge/bloom/etc. I have found the My List feature to suit my needs well for that.

Seeing a new influx of member ideas - love it!

My article about Virginia Creeper was published! I got the idea for the article in August 2016 and worked on it for quite a while. I figured it would be published when the time is right, just about when folks are hating the vines. Perfect timing.

Yes, the articles are a lot of work for both the writers and those that have to check/edit/approve. We all do the work to make this a better site, no, the best plant site on the internet!

Please keep the articles and ideas. I'm willing to volunteer to do my part to make the process easier for the admins.

Would love to see the prompt to add in the pull down menu at top of page either tools or Community. Thats where I look for stuff these days.

dave said:
We're not currently accepting new Ideas submissions. The future of that part of the site is being reconsidered.

dave said: For user generated articles and ideas I think I'm going to steer people to the blog feature of the site.

@dave
Good to know! I spent at least 20 minutes looking for the 'submit' button as I have an idea which I would like to share. I found this 'old' thread via the search function!
Please let us know if the decision not to accept ideas for publishing becomes final.
I think it would be a pity though if we no longer have this feature. I understand that it is a lot of work but the ideas are show-cased on the main page. How would one go about drawing attention to an idea when it is published in a blog post??

Not sure I get the idea of using the blog for ideas that people want to share. Do you mean there will be a special blog that people contribute to strictly for ideas? I can't imagine wading through everyone's blog in search of ideas. People use their blogs in many different ways, most of which seem to be a sort of personal gardening journal. I would think it would make more sense to have a forum specifically dedicated to sharing of garden ideas, if anything. I personally preferred the format of an article and will miss that feature if it goes away. Perhaps if the site is growing at such a pace that it is difficult to maintain the existing features, it's time for some additional help?

Yay! Community ideas are back!

greene said:Would it help if there was a group who volunteered to be 'first readers' to help clean up the articles before passing them along to be finalized by Trish and others?

@dave I am more than willing to volunteer!!

ctcarol said:Yay! Community ideas are back!

It's gone again...

I believe that when they seemed to "be back" it was just a matter of using some previous submissions.

They just cleaned out what was in the cue.
I sure hope that in the near future NGA will once again welcome articles and ideas submitted by members, but for now, they are not happening.

I especially liked the short-n-quick ideas that were perhaps 2-4 sentences long. Usually just common sense ideas - I got a lot of 'aha' moments from those. Seems most of the NGA articles are written by Susan Littlefield (no clue who she might be) and are a bit on the text-book side rather than the folksier tone of the member articles.

Bonehead said:I especially liked the short-n-quick ideas that were perhaps 2-4 sentences long. Usually just common sense ideas - I got a lot of 'aha' moments from those. Seems most of the NGA articles are written by Susan Littlefield (no clue who she might be) and are a bit on the text-book side rather than the folksier tone of the member articles.

I tend to be wordy, too! I'll keep that in mind, if Dave decides to restore the member idea articles. It's kind of difficult, bc my former career required OCD details, but I've no problem with challenging myself!

Funny, Dana, my prior life was more focused on being succinct.

@Dave is there a way to allow members to contribute articles again, with the suggestions mentioned above? I have several ideas to share, and I'm bursting at the seams! (Not to mention, it's a really great way to wind up with enough acorns to buy a decent amount of tickets for monthly drawings. )